The 2026 Paultacular Bruene Awards Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome! to the fifteenth annual Paultacular Bruene awards. They grow up so fast. Heeere’s the format. We – you, me, all of us – are going to run through some categories, most standard and a few of my own creation. Inertia reigns this year, no new categories and none leaving us. Is that because I’ve perfected this thing after fifteen years, or I’ve lost my creativity and/or gotten lazy? Who’s to say. Each category gets five Contenders and one Winner. As of this writing I’ve seen 52 films released in 2025, which is…fine. I did fine. So without much further ado…the Pauls!
Best Visual Effects
The Contenders
Avatar: Fire and Ash
F1
Predator: Badlands
Superman
Thunderbolts*
Bad news for anyone else whenever a Big Jim movie comes out, and this year – which is a pretty weak one for big blockbusters already – is no exception. The winner, easily, is Avatar: Fire and Ash. Varang tho.
Best Film Editing
The Contenders
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
Sentimental Value
Sinners
The Testament of Ann Lee
Get, uh, used to seeing a few of these names a lot throughout the rest of this thing. It was a topheavy year with four movies way, way ahead of the rest of the field. That said, the best edited movie the year – both on a macro narrative and micro scene sense – was the superlative One Battle After Another. The edit on the scenes around Sensei’s apartment alone win this.
Best Costume Design
The Contenders
Frankenstein
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
Pillion
Sinners
In this category I try to get a good mix of different kinds of costuming so it’s not just the category “five biggest budgeted period pieces.” No sci-fi or fantasy movies this year – again, weak year for big blockbuster budget films – but otherwise a good spectrum here. The winner, though, is indeed a period piece, the electric Marty Supreme. Really gets there on the ping pong outfits alone.
(note on Pillion: It’s being released in 2026 in the U.S. and who knows might even get some awards play next year. But I saw it at the 2025 New York Film Festival, plus it was released in the U.K. last year, so I’m treating it as a 2025 film)
Best Cinematography
The Contenders
28 Years Later
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
Sinners
Train Dream
That’s right, two horror movies here! Good year for very good looking wampire and zambie movies, apparently. But neither is our winner. Instead, I’m going with a movie that let’s be honest kinda cheated by filming on location in Pacific Northwest forests. That certainly helps you look gorgeous, and that’s exactly what Train Dreams is.
Best Scene
I’ve had the “one per film” rule in place for a while now, and it will remain in effect this year as well. This is also the only category that gets ten contenders because it is just too hard to narrow further than that. As always, I’ve tried to name these in a way that will not be a spoiler if you haven’t seen the film but will be recognizable if you have. Have I succeeded? You decide.
The Contenders
Ballerina – Flamethrower Duel
Eddington – “Fireworks”
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning – The Biplane Chase
One Battle After Another – The Car Chase Through the Hills
Pillion – A Day For Me
Romeria – The Flashback Dance
Seven Veils – The Final Production of Salome
Sinners – The Juke Joint Dance
The Testament of Ann Lee – The Ship Song
Wake Up Dead Man – Phone Call with Louise
A strong crop even from some disappointing movies (see next category) but in terms of a scene that just made me physically vibrate in the movie theater while I was watching there is absolutely no question that The Juke Joint Dance from Sinners was the scene of the year and probably of the last several years. Audacious, outstanding stuff, I knew it was going to win this category immediately.
Interestingly, no fewer than four of these involve dances. A dancy year I guess.
Best Production Design
The Contenders
Marty Supreme
No Other Choice
One Battle After Another
The Phoenician Scheme
Sinners
The Wes Anderson memorial category, he had a movie this year that I was pretty lukewarm on so it gets slot but not a win. No, the winner this year goes to the winner for the most orange ping pong balls (which should’ve been used in the climactic match but whatever) in a movie this year, that’s right, it’s Marty Supreme
Best Stuntwork
The Contenders
Ballerina
F1
Havoc
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
One Battle After Another
As previewed above, in part because (again) it was a weak year for big action movies and in part just because the action sequences rocked, our winner is the otherwise very disappointing Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. I usually don’t like giving wins to movies that I was overall negative on, but I just can’t deny that there were two amazing stunt setpieces and several other very very good ones in MI7.
Best Sound
For the record I combined sound editing and sound mixing into one category years before the actual Oscars did. Some have called me a visionary. Or in this case an…audionary?
The Contenders
F1
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
Sinners
Train Dreams
And yet even with the sound categories combined into one, I still find this maybe the hardest – or maybe just most boring – category just about every year, which probably means I should cut it. Well, not this year, which means I need to stop filibustering and pick something. Uh, how about Sinners yeah that had good sound, sure why not.
Best Use of Music
My category that combines Best Original Score, Best Original Song, and also incorporates strong non-score soundtracks. A real “throw everything in the blender” category.
The Contenders
KPop Demon Hunters
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
Sinners
The Testament of Ann Lee
Okay now we’re talking, this is a super strong category this year. As someone who is not around children much I have not been burned out on Kpop but it’s still distant fifth this year. This really comes down to a battle between Marty Supreme with its magnificent anachronistic 80s soundtrack and our winner, probably previewed by Best Scene above: Sinners. Probably already our winner but that mid-credits scene really puts it over the top.
Best Animated Feature
The only category that can have fewer than five films, if I did not see five animated films that meet a sort of nebulous quality cutoff. Like last year, four made the cutoff
The Contenders
Elio
KPop Demon Hunters
Predator: Killer of Killers
Zootopia 2
With the large disclaimer that I did not get to not one but two of the Oscar nominated animated movies this year – unusual for me, but in my defense they were unusually hard to find until very very recently and even then only for rental – this was a weak year for animated movies. Our winner is Pixar’s Elio but it’s a pretty weak winner and not even a top 15 Pixar movie.
Most Enjoyable Film
What’s the most pure fun I had watching a movie this year?
The Contenders
Black Bag
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
Sinners
Wake Up Dead Man
Some familiar names on there, eh. Not only was this a topheavy year, it was topheavy with three movies that were just a blast to watch. But only one had wampires* and so our winner is, again, Sinners. What a picture!
*unless you believe Kevin O’Leary, anyways
Best Screenplay
The Contenders
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
Sentimental Value
Sinners
Wake Up Dead Man
The actual Oscars has not taken my lead in combining the two writing categories, which I get, adapting prior works and a totally new script are probably meaningfully different. Not meaningful enough for me though! In large part because I don’t like having to figure out which one applies to each movie, so this one I have combined truly out of laziness.
Anywho, the presence of wampires is not quite enough to put Sinners over the top for this one, but the presence of Christmas Adventurers does. The best screenplay of the year was One Battle After Another. Hail St. Nick.
Best Performance by an Animal, Idea, or Inanimate Object
I’m not enjoying putting this category together as much as I used to, maybe in part because of how many animals are just CGI now. This year may be its last hurrah.
The Contenders
Marty Supreme - Moses the Dog
Sentimental Value – The House
Sinners – Music
Train Dreams – The Shoes
Wake Up Dead Man – Faith
If this is the last year of this category, then it’s tempting to give this a tie and award three winners to one of each of animal, idea, and inanimate object. But alas, even in this thing that literally only I read, I simply cannot countenance the idea of cheating, so we’re going to award the final (?) Best Performance by an Animal, Idea, or Inanimate Object to an animal – that’s right, Moses the Dog from Marty Supreme
Best Vocal Performance
The Contenders
Avatar: Fire and Ash – Oona Chaplin
Elio – Remy Edgerly (all hail Glordon)
Elio – Zoe Saldana
KPop Demon Hunters – Arden Cho
Zootopia 2 – Andy Samberg
As a corollary to the weak 2025 animated movie crop, it was a very weak vocal performance year. Same disclaimer though, maybe there’s an awesome performance in Arco or whatever, I guess that’ll just remain one of life’s great mysteries. Still, and with full knowledge that the level of motion capture renders the distinction between a vocal performance and a full on supporting performance extremely blurry, we have a clear winner: Oona Chaplin from Avatar: Fire and Ash. My least favorite Avatar movie to date (and I don’t love any of them) but it did introduce maybe the first interesting character in the entire series. Varang tho.
Scene Stealer of the Year
The category for someone who isn’t in the movie enough for it to be a full supporting performance but who does come in for a scene or two and hit four 3s off the bench.
The Contenders
The Life of Chuck – Annalise Basso
Marty Supreme – Abel Ferrara
Eddington – Austin Butler
Sinners – Delroy Lindo
Train Dreams – William H. Macy
A bunch of performances really riding the supporting/scene stealer line this year, including at least two in Sinners (Lindo and O’Connel) that I sort of arbitrarily decided to split up. Also, another dance representation here; I didn’t like The Life of Chuck very much but the one long dance sequence with Basso and Hiddleston was quite good. Also shoutout to Lockjaw’s very scary lieutenant guy, I don’t know what his deal was but he was quite memorable and almost made this list. Our winner, though, is a very funny and kinda performance in a kinda funny and very sad movie, William H. Macy in Train Dreams
Best Ensemble
The Oscars has introduced a “Best Casting” award but, humbly, I think my version is better.
The Contenders
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
Sentimental Value
Sinners
Hoo baby, this is a stacked category this year. Some very hard cuts for that final spot (Hamnet), which probably would’ve gone to Wake Up Dead Man but for some weird casting swings that I didn’t think really worked. Like sorry I just don’t buy Mila Kunis as a small town sheriff.
Marty Supreme is disqualified from actually winning because I, seemingly uniquely, really didn’t like Kevin O’Leary’s performance. So this is really a three way grudge match between extremely deserving movies. I’m going to ultimately go with One Battle After Another for its combination of strength in the leads and cast depth, but you really couldn’t go wrong with Sinners or Sentimental Value either – as will become extremely clear in the individual awards which start…now.
Best Supporting Actor
The Contenders
28 Years Later – Ralph Fiennes
One Battle After Another – Benicio Del Toro
One Battle After Another – Sean Penn
Pillion – Alexander Skarsgard
Sinners – Jack O’Connell
That’s what I’m talking about, this isn’t the most stacked acting category (we’ll get to that shortly) but still, great acting year on the men’s side. Skarsgard is sort of doubly dubious here – arguably both a 2026 film and a full co-lead performance – but Pillion isn’t really about him so I think he (barely) gets in as a supporting performance, thereby bumping probably Andrew Scott in Blue Moon out.
Still, it really does come down to the two One Battle After Another performances. Unlike at the actual Oscars (airing as I write this, and likely totally mooting this sentence momentarily) there’s no vote splitting to worry about, so I am going to give it, by just a tiny tiny tiny margin to Benicio Del Toro. Penn is great but he doesn’t deliver the “just a few small beers” line which, if I were still doing “line of the year” would be the easy winner.
(He also gains just a tiny bump from The Phoenician Scheme, which otherwise isn’t getting a lot of love here but he’s great in)
Best Supporting Actress
The Contenders
28 Years Later – Jodie Comer
No Other Choice – Son Ye-jin
Sentimental Value – Elle Fanning
Sentimental Value – Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas
Train Dreams – Felicity Jones
Another totally stacked category, apologies to both Hailee Steinfeld and Wunmu Musaku who were right in it. Unlike Actor, here it’s a lot closer within the contenders and if I wrote this on a different day any of these women could win. But today I’m going to give it to the only one of these performances that involved delivery a zambie baby, that’s right it’s 28 Years Later’s Jodie Comer
Best Actress
The Contenders
Hamnet – Jessie Buckley
One Battle After Another – Chase Infiniti
Sentimental Value – Renate Reinsve
Seven Veils – Amanda Seyfried
The Testament of Ann Lee – Amanda Seyfried
That’s right, a double nominee here for Seyfried, including one for a movie that I liked a lot and maybe literally no one else in the world saw, Seven Veils. Actress was maybe not quite as deep as Actor this year – the cuts weren’t super hard, really only Emma Stone for Bugonia (a late-ish cut for Supporting Actress for Eddington too) – but the five contenders are about as strong as I can remember. Again, great great acting year.
But apologies to Seyfried, I’m going chalk on this one. The Best Actress of 2025 – which, again, is saying something – was Jessie Buckley in Hamnet. That’s right, she had a whole net, just for ham.
Best Actor
The Contenders
Bugonia – Jesse Plemons
Marty Supreme – Timothee Chalamet
Sentimental Value – Stellan Skarsgard
Sinners – Michael B. Jordan
Wake Up Dead Man – Josh O’Connor
This might be the single deepest category I’ve ever done for this thing. There were no fewer than nine other leading male performances that I had on the short list, most of which absolutely could have made it in another year. So don’t read anything into any omission here, this was just an incredibly deep field. You heard me Leo.
And yet the winner was the lead in a (seemingly) silly Netflix murder mystery, the third in the Benoit Blanc series. No not Craig – who is perfectly enjoyable, in a clear supporting performance – but instead Josh O’Connor in Wake Up Dead Man (a Knives Out Mystery). It’s a very good script, but Father Judd still has no business quite popping as much as he does. His phone call with Louise, the construction company woman, is one of the best scenes of the whole year almost entirely on O’Connor’s performance. He’s an exciting young actor.
(Who was also the lead of two very boring movies this year, The Mastermind and The History of Sound can’t win ‘em all)
Best Director
The Contenders
Marty Supreme – Josh Safdie
One Battle After Another – Paul Thomas Anderson
Sentimal Value – Joachim Trier
Sinners – Ryan Coogler
Wake Up Dead Man – Rian Johnson
At this point at least three of these should certainly not be surprising. For the umpteenth time, it was a very topheavy year, which really includes Sentimental Value – it just got fewer contenders and wins by virtue of being a family drama and so not in contention for, say, Best Sound. There’s a big drop from those four to the final contender, which was the good-but-not-even-close Wake Up Dead Man, and there were not really a lot of others even in contention for that spot.
Still, you’d probably rather have a year with a few 4.5 and 5 star movies rather than a bunch of 3.5 and 4 stars, so I’ll take it. But even with the Big Four, one was clearly the standout, the best new movie I’ve seen in years and probably the best of the decade, so there will be no Director/Picture split this year. Best Director was Paul Thomas Anderson of One Battle After Another
Best Picture
The Contenders
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
Sentimental Value
Sinners
Wake Up Dead Man
And our winner is, therefore, One Battle After Another which just absolutely blew me away. There were four very, very strong movies this year, more than most years outside the really legendary ones (2007, 1999, 1994). But this was still a decisive win – I love a lot of PTA’s movies, and OBAA is not that far of a second place after There Will Be Blood, itself one of the best films of the century so far. So yeah, big fan of this movie.
There’s a Tarantino scripted, Fincher directed movie coming out so we’ll see if we get another decisive winner next year. So see you in 2027.
The Final Tally:
28 Years Later: Three Contenders and one Paul (Best Supporting Actress for Jodie Comer)
Avatar: Fire and Ash: Two Contenders and two Pauls (Best Visual Effects and Best Vocal Performance for Oona Chaplin. Varang tho)
Ballerina: Two Contenders and zero Pauls
Black Bag: One Contender and zero Pauls
Bugonia: One Contender and zero Pauls
Eddington: Two Contenders and zero Pauls
Elio: Three Contenders and one Paul (Best Animated Feature)
F1: Three Contenders and zero Pauls
Frankenstein: One Contender and zero Pauls
Hamnet: Two Contenders and one Paul (Best Actress for Jessie Buckley)
Havoc: One Contender and zero Pauls
KPop Demon Hunters: Three Contenders and zero Pauls
The Life of Chuck: One Contender and zero Pauls
Marty Supreme: Fourteen Contenders and three Pauls (Best Costume Design, Best Production Design, and Best Animal, Idea, or Inanimate Object for Moses the Dog)
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning: Two Contenders and one Paul (Best Stuntwork)
No Other Choice: Two Contenders and zero Pauls
One Battle After Another: Sixteen Contenders and Six Pauls (Best Editing, Best Screenplay, Best Ensemble, Best Supporting Actor for Benicio Del Toro, Best Director for Paul Thomas Anderson, Best Picture)
The Phoenician Scheme: One Contender and zero Pauls
Pillion: Three Contenders and zero Pauls
Predator: Badlands: One Contender and zero Pauls
Predator: Killer of Killers: One Contender and zero Pauls
Romeria: One Contender and zero Pauls
Sentimental Value: Ten Contenders and zero Pauls
Seven Veils: Two Contenders and zero Pauls
Sinners: Sixteen Contenders and four Pauls (Best Scene, Best Sound, Best Use of Music, most Enjoyable Film)
Superman: One Contender and zero Pauls
The Testament of Ann Lee: Four Contenders and zero Pauls
Thunderbolts*: One Contender and zero Pauls
Train Dreams: Five Contenders and two Pauls (Best Cinematography and Scene Stealer of the Year for William H. Macy)
Wake Up Dead Man: Six Contenders and one Paul (Best Actor for Josh O’Connor)
Zootopia 2: Two Contenders and zero Pauls
That’s thirty-one movies with at least one Contender and ten with at least one Paul, up slightly from twenty-eight and down from twelve respectively. Makes sense
For a complete list of what I've seen from 2025, in fluid and arbitrary order of overall preference, click here: https://letterboxd.com/teddroe/list/2025/. Note that I keep updating these lists when and if I see more, so if there are more than 52 films there it means I’ve seen something since writing this.
Now, just for fun:
Most Undernominated: Black Bag, an incredibly fun slick spy thriller directed by Steven Soderbergh that’s in my top ten films of the year but just didn’t quite make a ton of categories. It was sixth or seventh in at least five categories but just barely squeaked to one Contender, somehow.
Most Overnominated: Probably F1, a perfectly entertaining night at the movies that I am still very surprised got an Oscar nomination. Three contenders is a lot, but it’s also the kind of very technically proficient big budget movie that can overperform given how the categories work, especially so little competition in the popcorn categories.
The “Huh, That Sure Was a Movie” Award: Fantastic 4: First Steps which just…idk, was kinda there.
Best Movie You’d Never Know I’d Seen by Reading This: It Was Just An Accident is good – dynamite final 20 minutes in particular – but the story behind its creation is probably better than the actual film.
The Humblebrag Award for Movie That I Saw at the New York Film Festival: Pillion. Also Romeria but Pillion wins because I saw a Q+A with Alexander Skaarsgard (handsome and funny in person too) and the director.
The Inside Llewyn Davis Award for Most Contenders Without a Win: Sentimental Value, with ten Contenders (the record is 12). Given it was probably my third favorite movie of the year I’m surprised it didn’t quite break through, but it was second in several categories (including Best Actor – Skarsgaard Sr. was tremendous)
The Prosthetic Genitals and/or Butthole Award: This one goes to…The Testament of Ann Lee, apparently, according to Amanda Seyfried? 28 Days Later lodging an official complaint
The “I Guess We Know Which is The More Talented Brother” Award: The Smashing Machine, from Benny Safdie, was totally fine but not in the same stratosphere as Marty Supreme. Also Honey Don’t sucked, but a) we already sort of knew this because Drive Away Dolls was even worse and b) Joel Coen at least didn’t have a vaguely similar movie coming out in the same year
Movie I Promise I Saw But Couldn’t Find Anywhere On Here For: The Secret Agent was pretty good! Also Blue Moon.
The “Good But Should Have Been Better” Award: Superman, another movie that was fine, but with that cast it really felt like James Gunn could’ve gotten us something a little more focused and interesting. There was, to quote Karl Havoc, too much fucking shit.
The “Varang tho” Award: Avatar: Fire and Ash. Varang, tho.
Worst Movie Represented: I just did not care for The Life of Chuck, a big swing and a miss. But that one dancing scene was very, very good.
The The Last Jedi Award for Insanely Polarizing Movie That I Thought Was Basically Fine: Maybe Bugonia? A lot people seem to love or hate it; I did not think the ending worked but otherwise liked it fine. Materialists is another one.
The “Angel Reese Jump Shot Camp” Award: A House of Dynamite. Come on, she’s famously a post player.
The Surprisingly Important Weird Plot Point Award: Male leg-lengthening surgery in Materialists. However much you think they’re going to talk about that in the movie I promise it’s more
Worst Piece of Crap I Saw from 2025: It goes to Honey Don’t, but damning with faint praise this is the best winner of this award in a while. Honey Don’t is, like, normal bad, and I really didn’t see anything truly awful in 2025.
The “Wait a Coen Brother Directed This???” Award: Oops another winner for Honey Don’t, it’s really cleaning up here.
The “Is a Movie About Making A Movie I Found Incredibly Boring Itself Incredibly Boring” Award: Nouvelle Vague, and the answer is indeed yes. Not quite as boring as Breathless, but that’s a low bar
Movie I Should Be Most Ashamed of Not Seeing Before Writing This: I feel bad about not seeing either Arco or Little Amelie; I usually do a good job with the animated movies but just didn’t quite get to them this year. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is another. One I really wanted to see but was nowhere near, like, awards consideration was Sound of Falling, a German movie that sounds right up my alley but was not released on streaming at all this year and was in theaters in Seattle for like a day.
The “Ruined By the Trailer” Award: Honestly I’m not sure there’s a good one for this award this year. I’ll give it to Sinners but there was no way of avoiding it and I don’t think going in knowing that there will be wampires hurts it at all.
The “Not Sure Why I Didn’t Like It More” Award: I’ll go with The Phoenician Scheme here. I was kinda lukewarm on Asteroid City too, so not sure if it’s Wes or me.
The “They’re Wrong” Award: I really think Wake Up Dead Man was legitimately extremely good.
The “I’m Wrong” Award: Man, I just did not enjoy Frankenstein, a movie that on paper should really do it for me. Just, didn’t
The Irritating Backlash Award: Basically all of OBAA, Sinners, and Marty Supreme could qualify, but I’m going to give it to Marty. A victim of an overlong campaign season, I think; people seemed to get annoyed at Chalamet. His comment on opera and ballet was silly but come on people, do we want celebrities to say interesting things or not.
That’s All Folks!
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